


insomniac

by cacaoflavoured



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-17 14:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8147098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cacaoflavoured/pseuds/cacaoflavoured
Summary: In which one mischievous Saeyoung Choi has a real boatload of trouble sleeping, and a terribly persistent heroine sits through his shenanigans.





	

**It’s 8PM and Saeyoung refuses to go to bed.**

Obviously, this is no source of surprise for you anymore.

If you’re fair, 8PM is pretty early to head to bed to begin with. That, coupled with the fact that when he has a day like this, with his mind constantly preoccupied and his physical person buzzing around—tinkering with this and that—sleep is pretty much impossible.

This means sleep is difficult not just for him but for you as well, since you can’t help but dote.

-

You worriedly note that the previous night he crawled into bed at an ungodly 3AM in the morning, wrapping a sheepish arm around your waist as he snuggled in close. When you woke and turned your body to face him, he was but a wolfish, pearly white grin in the dark.

“Sorry, jagiya… Yoosung changed his mind and wanted to do the raid tonight!”

You glared at him with whatever force you could muster in your sleep-weary state.

“Don’t make that face,” he pouted, running a hand through your hair absently, “I swear I was going to come to bed earlier! Promise to God. Don’t be mad, okay?”

“Saeyoung-ah, you know you do this all the time… don’t start, okay?” You complain into the darkness, softening significantly when he inches ever closer.

“You know I’ll make it up to you,” he whispers playfully, hiking a hand up your nightshirt. His eyes twinkle in the darkness.

“Go. To. Bed.” You assert, steely. It was about damn time for the boy to come to bed, and there he was, still grasping at straws to stay awake.

“Fine, fine. Stingy!” He cooed, settling you into the crook of his neck. You breathed in the smell of him: sandalwood (his cologne) and cinnamon hearts (it was that gum that he always liked to chew… wait, that wasn’t right).

“Saeyoung… did you brush your teeth before coming to bed?” You asked brusquely, knitting your brows in annoyance.

He stiffened a bit before offering his meek response.

“No… but I’ll brush twice as hard tomorrow morning! I’ll even brush at lunch. Promise! The Defender of Justice never goes back on his promises!”

You rolled your eyes dramatically. It was just so hard to stay annoyed at the guy—he was so lighthearted, pleasant, silly. Adoring.

“You’re making an awful lot of promises, big guy,” you grunted, placing a gentle peck on his jaw, “But I’ll let you off the hook for now. Too sleepy to talk… night…”

He made a little humming sound in response and all was silent for mere seconds, before he hooked his thumbs in the back of your t-shirt bra. Your eyes shot open.

“Jagiya, don’t leave me! If you drop your defenses like that I can’t help myself. I could just…” he trailed off, moving his warm hands down to the small of your back, “… Attack.”

He looked a little flushed and impish, and a lot happy. You tried to quell your heart, for the sake of yourself and him… but as it happened (and tends to happen), you could not.

And so it went, another hour spent. By the time the two of you got to sleep, it was 4 in the morning. You were elated in the heat of the moment, hated yourself for it later.

-

To say that he’s been tinkering with things all day is probably an understatement.

He stands in the kitchen now, with a frilly red-and-white polka dotted apron tied loosely around his waist. He’s slouched over slightly, leaning lazily against the kitchen counter and beating some eggs. You watch the modest muscles in his forearm at work, labouring in attempt to create a late night snack of sorts.

“Let’s get to bed after food,” you moan mournfully to his back, “We slept so late last night…”

He turns to face you slowly, with the bowl of beaten egg mixture still in his arms. He’s got those stupid Hello Kyatty slippers on again and when he turns on his heels, they make a screeching sound against the kitchen tile.

“Oh?” He says, with a tilt of the head and a glint in his eyes, “I didn’t realize my little jagi was turning into an old lady!”

“A-Am not!” You say, spluttering. “We just… didn’t get to sleep until like, what was it, 4 in the morning?”

“Hm…” he whistles, turning back around to face the counter again, chuckling and teasing. “I seem to recall you having a lot of fun this morning?”

You blush furiously, stomping over and playfully whacking him in the back.

“Yowch! I think you broke something!” He yelps, doubling over and feigning pain. When he almost drops what’s in his arms, he says a quiet oops before straightening.

He gingerly places the bowl on the counter and before you know it, you are whisked into his capable arms.

“Looks like I’ll have to get you back for that now…” he says huskily against the base of your throat, carrying you off to the hallway. You feel his smile against your collarbone.

-

The gyeran mari is really delicious, you take care to reflect. It’s an awfully modest take on the dish (modest like Saeyoung himself, you think): it’s got button mushrooms, red bell peppers, and green onions in it. He doesn’t do it quite like your umma, who presents the dish with measured embellishments. When you were young, she always made it for you served on a bed of lettuce leaves, laying a sheet of toasted seaweed on top of the omelette before rolling it all up and slicing the egg into perfectly round medallions.

“It’s really good! And there’s no seaweed,” you mention absently. The dish is tasty and savoury—you let the flavour fill your mouth.

Saeyoung sits across from you, resting his face against his hand and watching you amusedly.

“Yup!” He answers in singsong, with a ghost of a smile on his lips. “You said you didn’t like seaweed one time. I remember!”

It’s the small things like this that you love about Saeyoung. To others, he would probably seem a bit of a space cadet, always off on his own plane of reality and never really listening in on conversations and topics at hand.

This is the honest-to-goodness him though, revealed to you in your sweet and mundane dealings: he is deceptively kind and caring. Deceptively observant, too—always watching, always listening. Extracting information. Holding it captive.

You make pleasant and lighthearted conversation over your late night snack.

“You have chips and soda so often I didn’t even know you could cook until we started living together,” you say, absent-mindedly watching him chew on his food.

“Jjajan! Agent 707 is a man of mystery!” Saeyoung exclaims, puffing out his chest in mock-pride.

You laugh mildly at his clown theatrics.

“… So where’d you learn to cook anyway?” You ask with a grin, investigating his fingernails. They’re rather short, and when he catches you staring, he quips:

“Used to bite ‘em a lot as a kid!”

Then, the little smile on his lips fades and he’s thinking up a response to your question with a faraway look in his eyes. He’s thinking about the past again, you muse. This is another thing that happens with the boy—you’d be in the midst of conversation and suddenly a taboo topic would come up. Something that reminds him of Saeran.

“… And as for where I learned to cook,” he starts, before swallowing, “Ah, well… mother often forgot to make anything to eat and Saeran was sick most of the time. So I guess I grew up learning some things here and there.”

You’re at a bit of a loss.

He quickly adds, with a self-deprecating laugh, “… I-It was good husband training! Right? I mean—I forgot all of the stuff I’d learned when I got a job and my boss started working me like a slave… didn’t have time to cook all that often… heh. But I guess it can’t be that bad?”

“No!” You sputter in protest, “No, it’s delicious.”

His honesty fills you with a bittersweet ache in your heart, so you find something, anything, to see his smile again.

You gingerly take a medallion of gyeran mari between two chopsticks and raise it to his face.

“Open wide!” You prompt, blushing furiously.

You can’t tell which of you is a brighter shade of red by the time he realizes what you’re asking.

“O-Okay!” he stammers happily, accepting the food with all the grace of a toddler.

The smile on his face after having been fed by you is a definite sight to behold: his eyes glow golden and crinkle at the corners. A big goofy open-mouthed smile. Your heart softens considerably.

“Chew with your mouth closed, Saeyoung-ah…”

**It’s 10PM and Saeyoung refuses to go to bed.**

“I’m boooored,” he whines. He’s laying stomach-down on the bed, kicking his legs haphazardly. “Play with me, jagi!”

You’re picking up some of his clothes off the ground.

If you have to point out one real negative to the guy, it has to be that he’s such a messy person. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the clutter in his living space. He has a distinctive tendency to leave things quite literally everywhere as if forgotten—jeans on the sofa in the living room, headphones on the kitchen counter, shirts all over the bedroom floor, empty chip bags here and there, mountains of empty plastic bottles.

When he notices you cleaning, he quickly protests, “Wait, don’t pick those up. I’ll get ‘em!”

“I thought we agreed on bed after our snack?” You ask, a little exasperated.

“Yeah, but…” he whimpers, before sitting up suddenly and bounding off to the hallway.

You decide the best course of action is to let him be for now, so you don’t chase after him. You reason that letting him exhaust his energy will make him ready to go to sleep. You can’t stop your own eyelids from drooping.

Still, you persist in your quest to rid Saeyoung’s house of litter.

From somewhere on the other side of the apartment, you hear him rummaging around.

“Seen my phone anywhere?” He calls out.

“Bathroom?” You guess, recalling him wandering in there with the thing. You shudder at the thought.

You hear him shout, “I’ll have to reward you later for your good memory heh heh!”

You roll your eyes dramatically. You’ve got an entire laundry hamper and then some filled to the brim with dirty clothes. You slowly begin to move towards the general direction you heard his voice come from earlier. That is, until you hear the doorbell ringing.

You meet Saeyoung in the doorway of the home before the security system activates, a mechanical voice coming to life and filling the relative quiet.

“Answer 4-3 in Arabic,” the voice says in its computerized lull.

“Wahid,” a voice says, clearly practiced in the intricacies of entering Saeyoung’s home.

“Affirmative. Do 12 one-handed push-ups,” the voice continues.

“Fucking hell, Seven, you know I’m out of shape…” The voice groans. You hear it counting what you would assume are one-handed push-ups shortly thereafter. It seems like a rather pained effort.

“Affirmative. Say ‘frog’ in French,” the security system drones.

A growl comes from the other side of the door. You begin to reach out to help the person get in but Saeyoung’s hand is on yours. He links your fingers together and tries desperately to hold in his laughter. He puts a finger to your lips and forces you to remain still to observe the shenanigans.

The voice hesitates for a moment before grunting an annoyed and breathless “grenouille”.

“Affirmative. Say ‘God Seven Zero Seven is the light of my life, fire of my loins’ in Chinese.”

There is a moment’s peace and quiet before the voice behind the door comes back to life suddenly, anger-laced and roaring.

“Aw fucknuggets, Seven, you make me say stupid shit sometimes but never shit this stupid! What is there, a special occasion!? Should I have brought flowers?!”

You almost feel bad about the situation but Saeyoung’s laugh is just so contagious: it’s an awfully innocent one, free of the weight of his scars. You can’t help but laugh along.

The voice bellows, “Let me in or I’m leaving! Seriously. It’s 10:30 at night… my getup’s crazy enough to make me look like a creep all on its own so don’t make me get reported to the police. Damn you, Seven.”

Saeyoung snickers, before prodding the bear, “Tsk, tsk, Ms. Vanderwood… you’re not being very cute today! Speak in your normal little gentle voice or you might scare my jagi!”

Vanderwood quiets, to the point of silence. You can almost feel her fuming.

“Should we let her in? She seems a little mad,” Saeyoung murmurs, scratching his cheek sheepishly. Joke gone too far?

You chide half-heartedly, “Enough torture for the poor thing…”

-

It turns out Vanderwood is here to participate in something she and Saeyoung have been up to awhile. An “ongoing project”? That’s all they’ll tell you at least.

“C’mere,” Saeyoung encourages softly. He offers you his hand with an impish little quirk of his lips, and you take it.

He leads you to the second floor, to the locked red door on the right side of the stairway. You always wondered about the secrets that hid behind it, but Saeyoung would always act strangely whenever it was mentioned. Kind of skittish. A little self-conscious, maybe? You’ve never taken offence or thought to prod, really—a man is entitled to some secrets, after all. Vanderwood pads lightly behind the two of you, nagging quietly about Saeyoung’s yet unfinished work.

Saeyoung extends his dominant right hand and puts key in lock. The door clicks open.

When the contents of the room are revealed with a twist of the brass doorknob, you are honestly fairly surprised: there are a number of musical instruments laid out in the space. Soundproof walls have been expertly installed and there is even a little recording station at the far end of the room.

“Most of these are mine so don’t get too impressed now,” Vanderwood drawls, the voice of sarcasm itself.

In the meantime, Saeyoung shrugs, leading you into the room excitedly.

“See anything you like?” He inquires lightheartedly, pushing you gently into the space, “Go on, try it!”

It’s actually a rather big room, so you wonder how you never thought to ponder its existence. It has blanched white walls, made paler by the bright white fluorescent lights hanging in the ceiling. A red bass guitar, a black electric guitar, a rosewood acoustic guitar, and a tiny little royal blue ukulele find their places in holsters on the walls. In the center of the room sits a modest keyboard, with an imposing drum set allocated to its left. Sitting against the back wall is the recording station you noticed at first, with a little brown shelf to its right littered with files, albums, and sheet music. The shelf is awfully messy, so you know that Saeyoung’s likely been through it.

You trot to the tiny ukulele in the wall, drawn to it instantly. You’ve always wanted to learn how to play.

“I-Is it okay?” You ask Vanderwood over your shoulder, reaching for the little instrument.

She wears a rather lazy smile, responding casually, “S’not mine, so go for it.”

From the corner of your eye, you see Saeyoung stiffen.

“It’s Rika’s,” his muted voice states.

Oh.

“She sometimes used it to sing to the kids of adults who’d come to our parties.”

You decide against reaching for the thing after all.

Saeyoung, though, walks up beside you and grabs the itty bitty ukulele from its holster. He turns to face you with a tiny dopey grin on his face. His thumb strums the little fluorocarbon strings, creating a series of chords. Or, discords, shall we say. None of the notes quite match up and he’s clearly not putting a huge effort into the charade.

“My jagiya,” he sings in a terrible wail, “My forever girl!”

Vanderwood curses at the sound, holding her hands over her ears.

You frown affectionately at the boy, feeling a small laugh bubble up from your throat.

-

You’ve relegated yourself to the far back corner of the room, sitting in front of the brown shelf. You leaf gently through some of the things you find at first glance, recognizing some well-known video game soundtracks, a script of some sort (for a musical?) and some messy hand-scribbled sheet music.

It is when a couple of minutes have passed that something awfully captivating begins to occur.

You hear a small sound from behind you so you turn on your stool, careful to make nary a noise.

Saeyoung has picked up the bass guitar and strapped it gingerly to his shoulder. The instrument hangs around his hip in his comfortable grasp. An old, familiar friend. He starts to pluck the instrument, and despite not having plugged the instrument into an amplifier, you can already tell that he’s fairly talented at playing. His left hand glides up and down the fretboard, well-practiced. A little superhero theme floats in the air.

He notices your glance and his intense expression softens. He stops plucking and a hand rises in beckoning, so you pace over to him.

“Hold on to these for me?” He requests pleasantly, plucking his signature striped horn-rimmed glasses from his face, “I move my head a lot when I play, so I don’t wanna lose ‘em, heh heh!”

You rarely get to see Saeyoung without glasses aside from when he crawls into bed in the pitch dark so it’s a rather welcome sight.

Saeyoung’s nothing like Zen, who’s got this sort of unnatural and mature handsomeness to his face. The boy, on the other hand, is definitely more charming than he is handsome—with a devilish sort of boyishness to him. That is, what makes him attractive is mostly in his charisma, rather than actual physical features.

On his face he’s got the lightest spray of freckles that extends from one cheekbone to the other, which you wouldn’t really be able to see without removing his glasses. His nose is a little crooked, and looks like it’s been broken at some point (your heart pangs painfully). He’s got fairly deep set eyes. Awfully feminine ones, too: they’re strange and smiling and yellow and sharp. Cat’s eyes. Angled slightly upwards and framed between a set of long, mahogany lashes. You briefly muse that the beauty of his eyes is perhaps why he’s always so convincing when dressing as a woman. And then he has those thin and animated mahogany brows—almost always quirked.

Quirked in confusion, now.

“W-What’s up, jagi?” He wonders nervously, flush spreading fast across his face.

Ah, he has that blush, too, you think. He’s relatively fair-skinned so when he blushes, it has a tendency to spread noticeably to as far as the tips of his ears. Quite adorable.

“Nothing, Saeyoung! You just had a fluff on your nose,” you say quicker than you’d have liked, a little white lie. You reach to get the “fluff” for him, and when you do, he catches your hand in his.

He swiftly delivers a peck to your lips, looking into your eyes with a little sneaky smile and raised brow. He has a dimple on only one side of his face. It’s awfully lovely.

“Left yourself wide open,” he teases, grinning wider now that it’s your turn to flush. He pulls your hand to his lips and delivers a tender kiss, laughing all the while.

“Get a room, guys… I’m getting goosebumps,” Vanderwood sighs miserably, a picture of discontent.

-

It turns out that playing bass guitar is one of the many things Saeyoung is extremely good at but is awfully modest about. He hadn’t even mentioned it to you until this very day.

One time, long before you and Saeyoung were as well acquainted as you are, you had a conversation with Yoosung, considered by most of the RFA members to be the closest to Saeyoung.

“What, Seven hyung? Oh, don’t take him too seriously. He jokes around a lot but I think he’s a really nice guy,” Yoosung said brightly, smiling at some distant event, “Plus, I admire the fact that he’s just a genius. He’s good at everything. I’ve never seen him do anything poorly really… he also never brags. Me, on the other hand… I’m not good at too much so it’s not like I have anything to brag about!”

The words of the little guy burn bright in your memory now, as you watch Saeyoung play a complex-sounding slap bass piece. His fingers move fluidly, expertly. The piece is riddled with musical intricacy and yet still, his practiced plucking births a groovy melody to fill in the silence of the night.

He’s good with his fingers, you think wickedly, before flushing furiously and coughing to hide your nervousness.

At some point, Vanderwood sits down at the keyboard and starts to play alongside Saeyoung. Suddenly the melody is brighter, louder. Saeyoung gracefully shifts from producing melody to producing a supportive bass line, while Vanderwood picks up the creation of a tune.

You hear it as they shift from one piece to the next. The RFA messaging app’s ringtone.

It’s a stripped-down, raw version, with just a simple line of melody and some bass to back it up, but it’s there nonetheless. The recognizable jingle fills your ears. Jostles your heart.

Saeyoung has his eyes shut, head bobbing lightly to the beat.

You hear the rises and falls, the harmonious refrain.

You briefly wonder why there are no lyrics to the song, before you hear a little hushed song rise from Saeyoung’s lips.

“… Your face lights up laughing from the jokes I’ve made,” he hums quietly to the tune of the melody led by Vanderwood.

He sounds timid and modest. His voice is quite quirky, even in song: it’s not quite as smooth and melodious as Zen’s, but it’s got an interesting timbre. He’s good… great, even. Able to hold his own against a powerful instrumental. More than able to stay on key. Brutally honest, with no embellishments or flourishes.

“… You and me, let’s marry in the space station,” he sings with a cheeky grin, cracking open just a single, glinting amber eye to peer at you.

You look away, coy. You’ve never been serenaded before, not to even mention had lyrics and verses written for you.

Staring at Saeyoung has become flustering to say the least, so you shut your eyes, let the melody of the song play, and listen to the occasional line that Saeyoung fills in with voice. The night is syrupy-sweet and lighthearted… until Saeyoung’s security system blares again. His elderly neighbour comes banging on the door at exactly 11:32PM, threatening to call the police with a noise complaint and babbling about the blatant disrespect of “youngins these days”.

**It’s 12AM and Saeyoung refuses to go to bed.**

And you’ll be the first to admit, this time it’s true that he kind of can’t. Vanderwood’s still over and Saeyoung is at the neighbours’ house, attempting to prevent a 119 call.

Vanderwood leads you up the rickety fire escape ladder and onto the roof of Saeyoung’s house. To do some “spying”, she said.

You don’t know what kind of spying entails eating popsicles on the roof, but you roll with the punches.

“He’s gotten rusty,” Vanderwood says between languid slurps of her popsicle.

You chuckle in response. You have in hand your favourite icy treat, a coconut milk and Azuki bean popsicle. “I didn’t even know he knew how to play. Or sing.”

“He does a bit of everything, that kid,” Vanderwood says idly, with a grin.

The stars are out tonight, glittering in the sky. There is a gentle summer breeze that rolls by the two of you, laced with spicy and sweet smells from the street food being sold in the night market a couple of blocks down.

“But yeah, he’s been writing that for you for a bit now,” Vanderwood notes, littering her popsicle stick onto Saeyoung’s driveway below, “It’s still a work in progress and he’s been trying to get Zen to sing and play the piano part. I play some guitar in my spare time so I usually take care of that. And the drums… I think he said he was trying to get the other kid to do. The blonde one.”

“Yoosung?” You suggest.

“And which one might that be?” Vanderwood drones mockingly.

You roll your eyes.

“Yeah, that little one’s got a ton of personality. Doesn’t seem like it but when he’s pissed he’s actually got a real temper. One time he came over after he apparently lost some loot in a computer game or whatever. Thrashed that drum set so hard Seven’s neighbour came and threatened to call the police at 3 in the afternoon…”

You laugh out loud, trying to imagine Yoosung genuinely angry. You can’t.

There’s a very pleasant silence that passes… Vanderwood lies down on the flat surface of the roof and you lift your visage to peer at the stars, attempting to make out the shapes of constellations.

“… You know, he really loves you,” Vanderwood says almost inaudibly into the summer evening, before groaning, “That sounded gross.”

You smile a tender smile.

She was right—Saeyoung did love you. Did little things for you all the time. Doted on you, followed you around like a little puppy dog. Tinkered with things for you. Massaged you when you were in pain. Kissed your bruises better. Made you scream in pleasure. Offered you a shoulder to lean on in times of crisis. Made you food. Sang you songs…

All that and more.

“Yeah,” you agree, feeling tears stinging your eyes.

“We’ve been through some stuff together,” Vanderwood recounts, reminiscing.

Her voice is thick with a complex conglomerate of emotion: you hear some jealousy, some pride, some joy, some melancholy.

“I’ll put it this way. I’m a pragmatist,” Vanderwood reflects, a kind of sheepish smile spreading across her face, “So, my life’s ever on the line, I’m just gonna apologize ahead of time, because it’s me first. Not gonna be sticking out my neck for your man.”

You snort.

“But uh… he really likes you, you know? Really. After all these years, least I could do is let you know I guess.” The woman continues, gazing up at the stars in the night sky.

“Our years working together… they’ve been gritty as all hell. But that kid?” Vanderwood grins and clicks her tongue, shaking her head, “Tough as nails. He’s been shat on tons of times. Taken beatings. Been starved. Got fucked with by the higher ups. The whole glorious shebang with this line of work.”

Vanderwood breathes in.

“But guy never really said a word. He was the smallest kid at camp for a little so he got messed with the most and he never cried or anything. All the other kids that got fucked with did—cried ‘til their voices were hoarse for the next month.

“Uh, he was really good about everything. Took it like a champ. Said it was better than at home or something. Heck, he started doling it back in spades at one point. Broke a couple’a bones, took out a couple’a teeth, you know.

“Eventually he just shot up like a beanstalk and beefed up and no one fucked with him anymore,” Vanderwood summarizes with a shrug.

She shuts her eyes and swallows, before continuing, “I only ever saw him cry twice.”

“Once, when one of the older recruits took a book he owned or something… never seen anything like it… he flipped shit and David versus Goliathed it. Tore the guy to pieces with his bare hands. We had to break protocol and phone the ambulance it got so bad—beat the guy half to death, all with tears running down his face. Like an absolute rabid animal.”

“And the other?” You prompt with your voice shaking, scrunching your face and letting hot tears run down your cheeks.

You know what the book meant. The book was Saeyoung’s hope for so long: hope that Saeran was off somewhere, doing better than him. To have his very symbol of hope torn away… you simply cannot fathom a more traumatizing event; anything more worthy of Saeyoung’s grief. Your heart aches painfully.

“… The other?” Vanderwood clarifies, opening her eyes but a crack. A sleepy smirk graces her lips.

“When he told me that he was gonna ask you to marry him at the space station or something like that. Whatever he wrote in the song, I guess. Cried harder than when they stole his book… with huge, fat tears. Like a big baby. Said he was so happy he could die.”

**It’s 3AM and Saeyoung refuses to go to bed.**

You’ve seen Vanderwood off now, and there’s really no excuse for him to prolong your misery.

“Bed,” you demand, linking arms with Saeyoung and attempting to drag him off to the bedroom.

“Buuuuut,” he whines, making puppy-dog eyes, “I was gonna do your nails and you were gonna do mine, and we were gonna finish the last episode of the swimming anime, and then I was gonna show you how to decrypt some stuff from the ARG for that shooter Yoosungie and I have been playing together… wait, wait!”

You really won’t take no for an answer this time, so you stomp off down the hallway with his arm in tow. Despite his protests, he doesn’t actually put up a fight at all. Just kind of acquiesces; stumbles behind you muttering half-hearted protests. All bark and no bite.

At long last, the plush bed of champions awaits. It’s actually a fairly modest one for two people to share—a double. Despite earning so much from his work the kid apparently had not a dime to spend on sleeping arrangements because firstly, he hadn’t planned on having a player two, secondly, he didn’t sleep all that much anyway, and thirdly, costs of car accessories were going up with inflation.

The first night you’d ever slept over, the two of you were none the wiser to the size of the thing (which doesn’t matter when two bodies are wound so tightly together as if one). Later, though, when the bed was actually used for more practical purposes (actually sleeping that is), you were quick to note the difficulty of getting through the night without waking Saeyoung by kicking him. You happen to be, regrettably, a kicker.

“Swear I’ll get us something bigger soon, jagiya,” he murmured after his first sleepless night, drooping eyes resting wearily on his energy drink, “Even the great Defender of Justice needs his sleep…”

The size of the thing is no matter now. The black bedsheets and dark blue comforter with cartoon rockets on it call your name.

You kick off your fuzzy, powder blue slippers and begin to reach for the bed, before you are whisked up into Saeyoung’s arms.

You yelp in surprise, and he cackles in response.

“Not letting you get away that easy!” He declares, looking down at you with a tender expression on his face. His eyes glow golden.

He plops a sloppy little kiss on your forehead, before carrying you down the hallway again. Back to the doorway.

“Saeyoung, please…” you half-groan-half-sob, wondering what you did to deserve this.

He sniggers in response, mischievous, “… Just be a good sport for a little longer, jagiya, you can sleep in the car.”

At this point, you’ve fully resigned to your fate. It seems no amount of convincing will get him to sleep. He’s like this all the time—once he thinks of something he wants to do, he just can’t rest without getting it done.

You can’t help but marvel at his strength, too, which you wouldn’t really be aware of just looking at the guy. He’s able to pick up his dusty ankle boots from the doormat with you still perfectly in his arms without even breaking a sweat.

Saeyoung’s fairly slender, but has a wide frame, square shoulders, and beautifully toned muscles underneath all the layers of clothes he tends to pile on… you flush furiously at the memory of his naked figure.

He whistles cheerfully, bounding off towards the garage door. You snuggle into the mustard yellow of the sweater he’s got on today. It’s one of your favourites—you picked it hoping it would bring out the yellow of his eyes. That it did. The soft material is warm from hugging his body and smells like his sandalwood cologne.

“I gotta get my shoes,” you murmur drowsily.

“Nuh-uh,” he negates softly, smoothing the wisps of hair hanging in your eyes, “Not where we’re going you won’t.”

-

Somewhere after falling asleep in his arms you are woken by him placing you delicately in his car’s passenger seat.

You have a very dreamlike conversation with him (which you’re not exactly positive even took place), where you nag him about not bringing a coat.

“I’m wearing one right now,” he murmurs softly, watching you out of the corner of his eyes, “Sleep, jagiya.”

-

Then, you wake up at some point again, wherein you absently complain that only thing he takes really good care of in the house is his cars.

“You should rest assured then!” You hear him insist, and when you look over his eyes are twinkling… looking off onto the road in concentration but twinkling nonetheless.

“How come?” You wonder, confused and half-asleep.

He flashes a boyish grin that reveals his dimple, “Well, I take pretty good care of the things I love, if I do say so myself…”

-

There is a song he’s playing on the car speakers. A dream pop tune.

The sound fills you—it’s got a melancholic mood to it. Sounds a little hopeless, but a little hopeful at the same time. It’s got a perplexing sort of duality to it… something about cities. About churches? About rides in the dark.

**It’s 5AM and Saeyoung refuses to go to bed.**

And you’re in no position to really ask him to, you suppose. He’s got to drive the two of you back home, anyway. You’re a pretty terrible driver and maneuvering around in the twilight, running on sparse little winks of sleep sounds like a literal car accident in the making.

Plus… if you asked Saeyoung to drive his car? His baby? …He would probably let you, but you actually aren’t too sure about this one. He’s awfully protective of his cars.

It’s him that wakes you at 5:12AM, with a very gentle shake on your shoulder and an almost inaudible whisper of your name.

When he sees your eyes opening, he reaches out and pulls you into a short little embrace.

“We’re here!” He announces happily, reaching under your knees and pulling you into his capable arms.

It’s the beach, you observe.

The sand and waves themselves are a little ways off in the distance since you and Saeyoung are in the middle of a parking lot, but the smell of salt and crisp morning air is lovely. A little pleasure.

He starts marching over, whistling contently.

As soon as his boots touch sand, Saeyoung gingerly puts you down on your feet. Without skipping a beat, he catches your hand and leads you over to the water, kicking off his boots and leaving them haphazard and abandoned.

There are a number of seagulls wading around, fluttering their feathers and cooing. The sun is just on the verge of peering over the horizon, and there is a temperate breeze that blows by.

It’s an awfully serene snapshot in time, made warm and tender and sweet by Saeyoung’s fingers linked with yours.

“Nice, isn’t it?” He prompts with a toothy smile, yellow eyes fixed on the intersection of sea and sky.

“Pretty,” you answer softly, wrapping both arms around his hips and nuzzling against the cotton of his sweater.

“It’s one of the first sights I fell in love with after I left home,” he confesses, with the rising sun rendering his eyes bright, glimmering, golden, “I’d never seen anything so beautiful in my life. You never know how different it is to see something from behind a window until you see it up close.”

“… Like you,” you answer mildly, reflective.

It’s true—the Saeyoung who dodged all your advances cleverly and pushed you away was beautiful enough on his own. Tantalizing. It was delving into him, though, pulling back each painstaking and mysterious layer that revealed the whole him. The most stunning him; brighter than the sun and infinitely more warm.

“No fair,” he chuckles, eyes becoming two crescents, “I was just going to say that about you!”

You scrunch your face playfully.

“I watched you from behind my monitor because you were so bright and I was scared that if got too close and touched you I’d burn. But when I took a chance…” He laughs, a melodious sound that melds into the sea breeze, “I fell in love, I guess.”

“And just like the sun’s much nicer when you’ve stepped outside… you’re much prettier in person than on 1440p, ” he cajoles, sticking out his tongue teasingly. 

He brings his face to you to touch the tip of his nose to yours.

You can’t help but make a little noise at how corny he’s being.

Together you watch the birds frolic and the run rise. The moment is infinite, indescribable using mere words. Like being at the centre of the universe: it’s just you, and him, and your linked fingers.

The regrets and heartaches of the past are left behind in your collective footsteps in the sand, to be washed away by the constant and persistent crashing of waves. All you see is the present and future, wide as the expanse of the horizon, bright as the early morning sun.

“I love—” you both open your mouths simultaneously, before erupting into laughter.

The seagulls on the beach embark in flight, terrified at the sudden sound.

It was worth it, you think. You would have missed any sleep in the world to see this sight and breathe this moment.

“… Saeyoung-ah?”

“Hm?”

“You lied about bringing a coat.”

**It’s 8AM.**

You rush into the familiarity of Saeyoung’s humble abode, rejuvenated and renewed. He kicks off his leather boots again, in his typical careless fashion, and breezes past you.

“Race you to the bedroom!”

Saeyoung is already long gone by the time you shut and lock the door, re-enabling the security system. You’re surprised to find that once you eventually enter the bedroom, he is already lying in wait, with his arms open wide.

“I’ve been through hell to try to get you to behave,” you groan, collapsing into the bed and into his embrace. You still have your outside clothes on, which makes you inwardly cringe, but you have a boatload of laundry to do tomorrow (today) anyway—what’s the point in crying over some extra stuff to wash?

He laughs, and you can feel the rumbling of his chest reverberate through you.

“Sorry… I love you,” he murmurs pleasantly, drifting into a peaceful sleep at last.

The fact that he falls asleep before you is just awfully ironic.


End file.
